


baptism

by Saul



Series: groundhog day au [1]
Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: And the Cruel Get Smart, Gen, Groundhog Day Gone Wrong, In Which Time Travel Favors the Cruel, Riko Moriyama is a Bad Man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-14 03:36:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7997128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saul/pseuds/Saul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Riko died on the taste of gunmetal.</p><p>He lived again with betrayal fresh in his mouth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	baptism

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING** for suicide mention. 
> 
> Riko's an awful terrible horrible individual. His home environment screwed him over (the analysis potential on his tragedy is Great), but as Kevin proved, Riko had a choice and made the wrong one time and again.
> 
> That said! Please enjoy this look into a Riko given a second chance. It sure is something.

Riko died on the taste of gunmetal.

He lived again with the taste of betrayal fresh in his mouth. Anger, cold and burning, filled his senses. Before him stood his brother, his friend, and his first traitor.

Across from him, half geared for court and coated in sweat, Kevin Day ducked into his locker to avoid his eyes. He said, his voice echoing off hollow metal, “I’m thinking of polishing off that eggnog before bed. Do you want any?”

This was not the first time Kevin had spoken those words. The day they had been first muttered had been their last exchange of honest advice.

The racquet in Riko’s hands was heavy, pulling him down from a gunshot and blinding, short-lived pain.

Riko choked on the taste of fury. If Kevin hadn’t _left him_ , if he hadn’t _turned his back_ on him, Nathaniel would never have weaseled his way into controlling Riko’s life. Kevin was the first pivotal betrayal.

This was his hell. He felt it in his gut. Never a religious man, he nonetheless believed it wholly and completely.

Anger settled as a cloak on his shoulders. It used to be a foreign sensation; now, its presence put him at ease. He knew what to do.

“Kevin,” he called. “Come here.”

Just as on that first day, Kevin did. He had a cautious look to his eyes, but he didn’t fully understand. That was fair - on the original day, Riko hadn’t understood, either. All he’d known was the practice scrimmage had ended with Kevin at three points ahead of him, and that his uncle had turned away from Riko to congratulate Kevin.

He was dead. His brother had killed him.

Riko broke Kevin’s hand, a racquet cracking heavy against fragile bone. Kevin fell back.

Because he was dead, because he was angry, because he didn’t think he could, he pulled the racquet back and swung again. Kevin’s head cracked against racquet and again against metal. The skull split.

Forgotten and unnoticed down the bench, Jean fetched his uncle.

Riko, deemed violent and thoughtless and a liability beyond belief to the family name, died.

—

Riko died with the sound of a cane whistling through his ears.

He lived again with the sound of a helmet knocking against the back of a metal locker. The world came in sharp focus: the weight of a racquet in his hands, heavy and sure. The breath in his lungs. The fury, cold and sluggish, in his veins.

Kevin, his back to Riko and eyes hidden, said, “I’m thinking of polishing off that eggnog before bed. Do you want any?”

Riko cocked his head at the sight of a living, unbroken Day.

It had taken three days for Riko’s fate to be decided. It hadn’t been anything he’d experienced before, his fate decided over a phone call between his uncle and his father as he waited under watch in the adjacent room. Neither his father nor his blood brother appeared for the execution. The satisfication of breaking Kevin for good had barely lasted ten minutes, never mind three days.

He felt hollowed.

He felt curious.

He glanced over his shoulder, spotted the snitch, and turned.

Jean didn’t meet his eyes. He had been their score-keeper, as his typical Raven partner would have only held the three of them back. Now he sat, silent and bland, calloused hands loose in his lap.

Riko hefted his racquet.

“Riko?” Kevin asked. The metal locker made a terrible racket as he fell back into it, his gasp muffled by the louder crack of Riko’s weapon on Jean’s back.

After he was done and Jean stopped squirming, Kevin begged him to call the nurse. _You’ve gone too far,_ he whispered, his hands shaking over Jean’s concave ribs. _He’s going to die. Fuck, shit. Riko, please, this time we have to call the nurse!_

Riko didn’t fetch the nurse. He waited with Kevin, though, if only because he could.

Not once did Kevin look him in the eye. Even when he tried to take Jean’s pulse and failed to find a beat and, at last, scrambled up on his own power, he dodged Riko’s gaze.

It was curious. He hadn’t noticed that before.

His uncle came to him with Kevin, pale and fearful, at his side.

It took a week, but he knew his fate was sealed. Telling his uncle that he knew exactly what his father would decree and informing Kevin of his defection to the Foxes probably hadn’t helped. When Kevin visited him in his private, locked room and told him through the door that Jean would live, he had sneered back that the Trojans would adore such a blatant charity case.

He also told Kevin, “I wouldn’t have missed him like I missed you,” because this was hell, and it didn’t really matter what he said.

Kevin thought he’d snapped. He wasn’t wrong.

The insanity more than the act sealed his father’s decision, or so his uncle told him. They couldn’t have such an unhinged disgrace re-entering public.

It was hell. It didn’t matter.

—

Riko died with lukewarm bath water in his lungs.

He lived again to the smell of a clean but well used locker room, Kevin turned away and coated in sweat.

Kevin asked his question. Riko barely heard him.

His anger sparked no longer at the two beside him, but at the press of inevitability. Eight collective days with his thoughts had left him with too much to say and not enough space to breathe.

“Riko?”

He was already awfully tired of dying.

The only reason he tuned back in to the locker room was Kevin’s green eyes peering at him from around a locker door. No worry swam in their depths - no Raven _worried_ , it was a waste of time compared to _getting something done_ \- but a question lingered.

Riko cocked his head.

The racquet, heavy in his hands, clattered to the floor.

Kevin’s eyes followed its descent. Both he and Riko contemplated it. Both were startled for very different reasons.

“Jean,” Riko said. “Pick it up.”

Not waiting to see if his orders were followed, Riko stepped over the bench and headed for the showers. He had to take off his gear at the door, but that was fine. It was different.

Kevin eventually joined him. Together, they showered, fetched towels and redressed in plain black.

That night, they drank the rest of the eggnog. He asked Kevin to split it, and Kevin did. Jean returned to his room with his assigned partner. Kevin wanted to talk strategy with the other Ravens while intoxicated. Riko told him to stay, and he did.

At that, absurdity crashed on Riko like a wave over a shore, and he laughed, and laughed, and laughed. When Kevin reached to take his drink from him, old fury welled up, and he smashed the glass into Kevin’s hand.

The tendons would never heal properly, the nurse told them.

His uncle looked at him with disappointment.

Kevin left.

The Foxes gained first a coach, and then a striker.

—

Riko died to the taste of gunmetal and a trigger pulled by his own hand.

He lived again to the clang of a helmet against a locker. Kevin, half-hidden from him. Jean, silent and bland.

It was, surely, hell.

That time, he sat on the bench and seethed.

Never before had he brought harm to his own person. But to stare down the barrel of Kevin with the Foxes, of Minyard and Wesninski and his father’s too-soon death and his brother’s cold judgement was far worse than an actual gun. He’d already died thrice. What could once more hurt?

As it turned out: it hurt. A lot.

It brought fear into his consciousness. He didn’t like that. He didn’t _need_ that. He’d gotten through every other death without it.

His hands shook in his lap. He gripped his knees to hide it, his face otherwise carefully blank.

Kevin asked, “I’m thinking of polishing off that eggnog before bed. Do you want any?”

Riko replied, numb, “Yes.”

Kevin paused. In the corner of his eye, Riko saw Jean glance at his white-knuckled hands. It was a sneaky look, as if Jean honestly thought Riko wouldn’t notice.

Peering around the locker door, Kevin treaded lightly. “Riko?”

Metal on his tongue.

Never again.

A cane against his head.

Never again.

How?

In answer, he stood and went to the showers. He remembered to remove his clothes too late, but it didn’t really matter. Eventually Kevin joined him. They showered, they toweled off, they dressed. Jean left for his partner. Kevin scrounged out the eggnog. They split it. Riko kept himself on the other end of the room, though twelve feet was nothing in terms of Riko’s ability to aim his throws. For whatever reason, Kevin didn’t ask to leave.

Eventually they dressed for bed.

The day Riko woke to was not one he knew. The drills, the practices, the food in the cafeteria, the Ravens passing him in the halls were all familiar, but to have Kevin at his side on that date was not something he understood as possible.

And yet, it persisted. He held himself in check to see how far it would go.

It went to Christmas, then New Year’s, then a week beyond. Nothing changed.

Kevin knew something was wrong with him. His Exy game didn’t suffer (the trifling matter of his death would not interfere with his legacy), but he found it more difficult to acclimate to Kevin’s return than he had thought. Then again, it had to be primarily due to Kevin and his uncle and Jean and the other Ravens not knowing Kevin _had_ left.

It continued to be hell, albeit a twisted and subtle one.

Surprising no one more than himself, Riko continued to live.

His anger came and went in waves. He turned it mostly to inanimate objects, though cracking the bathroom mirror was nowhere near as relieving as cracking bone. It felt like a waste of time and energy. A waste of a lesson. But his family had called him reckless and careless, he refused to give his brother the satisfaction of being right now that he knew he could survive.

(His father wasn’t dead. It didn’t have to be too late. _He’d prove it._ )

February came.

“If you were in hell,” he asked Kevin, apropos of nothing, “would you find the devil?”

Kevin frowned at him over a Roman history book. “A devil? What?”

Setting down his own studies, Riko stood. The Ravens would win the spring championships. They had won even without Kevin. With him, it was no question.

Winning without Kevin had happened. If it hadn’t, how would Riko remember it?

He felt like he was going to go mad.

Ichirou could _not_ be right.

By simple digging, he discovered Neil Josten attended Millport High School. With a bit of pressure on a well-meaning and misguided coach, he arranged for Kevin and him to fly in for one of the small town’s dreadfully dull Exy games.

As Riko had known he would be, Kevin was impressed.

“If he had a better team–”

“– he would make U.S. Court,” Riko finished.

Kevin nodded. Awed, he asked, “How did you find him?”

“The coach followed his instinct and sent a tape,” Riko answered.

Though Kevin frowned at what he knew to be Riko’s lying voice, he didn’t press it.

Quietly, Riko reveled in that easy understanding of where they stood.

After the game, they lingered in the coach’s office until most of the team had left. Mr. Hernandez collected Neil Josten then, bringing him back to see Riko and Kevin.

The moment he caught sight of them, he looked like someone had driven a racquet into his gut.

Violence jumped under Riko’s skin and kick-started his heart.

When Mr. Hernandez ushered Neil in, bidding him not to be rude, Riko felt like he was living.

Here was proof. Here was Nathaniel Wesninski, young and unmarked.

Riko didn’t believe in second chances, but if he did, he would say he was beginning to grasp the point of his.

“We’d like to offer you a place in Edgar Alan.” He leaned forward even as he saw Kevin start. They hadn’t discussed this; the plan had been to give Neil a test run in a real court with a real team. But that was because Kevin didn’t  _understand._

That was fine. That was fair. Riko hadn’t explained.

When Neil balked and turned them down, Riko asked Mr. Hernandez if he wouldn’t mind grabbing his bag. He’d left it by the entrance, and it had pamphlets to help Neil understand the legitimacy of what they were offering. He was _so sorry_ he’d forgotten it.

The coach, ignorant as he was, happily left to fetch it.

It was then that Neil attempted to bolt.

“Nathaniel!” Riko called, and froze him in his tracks. “You don’t want Mr. Hernandez knowing the truth, do you? How about your father’s men?”

Brown eyes (colored contacts, really? the boy was too much) turned to meet his. At his side, Kevin stiffened from pure surprise. That was fine. They’d discuss it in their rented car while Neil grabbed his things.

Neil, Neil, Neil.

He looked so very scared.

His mind hadn’t lied to him. This was Nathaniel Wesninski, alias Neil Josten, and Riko had found him from memory alone. Maybe it wasn’t hell. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

“Sign on,” Riko told Nathaniel, “or we’ll see who comes to your aid with your secret out.”

Neil signed on.

Riko lived again with the taste of victory on his tongue.


End file.
